h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

They were flitting about all over the place last night around dusk and putting on an incredible show It made me think of trips to Never Never Land during the Southend Illuminations when I was a kid

You might find this page interesting CZ: http://www.burger.com/firefly.htm

Very nice BH. I've been wondering about this for quite awhile. I assumed it was the mosquito control programs. There were fireflies in my area when I was a kid. Not the huge numbers I saw in the hill country around the Guadalupe, but a heck of a lot more than I see now. I have seen a few solitary fireflies over the last couple of years. So there is hope yet.

It is quite amazing the changes I've seen in this area since I was a kid. Other creatures that are missing from the area are red ants and horned toads. I believe there is a direct correlation. The diet of the horned toad lizard consisted primarily of red ants. I think that the red ant population was decimated by fire ants and the horned toad went with it. I'm so glad that there are still horned toads in the more arid areas of Texas still.

I never saw many squirrels in my neighborhood when I was a kid but now they're everywhere. There were plenty in other Houston/Galveston area neighborhoods, just not mine.

I don't see quite as many bats around anymore. There are still some around, just not as many. (I always make it a point to check out the bat bridge if I can when I'm in Austin.)

We now have crows around here. The first crows I saw were in West Virginia at my mother's childhood farm. I only started seeing them around here in the 90's.

We now have several colonies of green lorikeets nesting in the powerline towers outside of town. Voracious and noisy birds but I like them.

When ever I start wish things were more like they were when I was a kid, ecologically speaking, I remind myself that this entire area is nothing like it was 2 centuries ago. The predominant trees here are Chinese Tallow. This area was mostly prairie land. Luckily there is an active prairie preserve just south of my town and now it is working with the Johnson Space Center (which is itself basically a defacto prairie) to provide even more protected prairie land for the Attwater's prairie chicken.

There's hope yet.

"This area was mostly prairie land"
And there was me thinking that Houston was built on a swamp

Since I've only been here for coming up on seven years I haven't had the opportunity to notice anything in the way of change. Most of what I see is just new to me - geckos, small snakes, the odd scorpion , fireflies, huge off cockroaches, grackles, bluejays, red cardinals, monarch butterflies, black widow spiders , and yes - shitloads of squirrels.

Not seen an armadillo yet. Well, not a live one. There's a shop nearby that's got a stuffed one in the window... lying on its back with a bottle of Lone Star in its paws and forever chugging on said bottle

Just like this one in fact http://easycarts.net/ecarts/TShirtsNTexas/images/272RALS.jpg

I tried to catch an armadillo once with a friend... once they start digging into a burrow it's over... their tail is a one way grip. Powerful little buggers.

I love the grackles. They're my favourite bird: irridescent black, smart as heck, hunt in packs, real survivor species and they make noises like something built by radio shack.


Oh, and Houston is pretty much a swamp. I live closer to Galveston. The entire area is bayous running through what was originally salt grass prairie flood plains. Home of the Karankawa and Anahuac. Very fertile hunting and fishing territory.

Now it's covered in Tallow trees and "masterplanned" communities.

Ever been to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Centre? I went a couple of years ago and loved it. On the one hand it'll be good to go at this time of the year because the bluebonnets are out, but on the other hand it'll be full of families dumping their kids into a patch of the flowers and photographing them.

We don't normally get to see a lot of fireflies in the city.

A couple of years ago, I was in a car driving back from a small town nearby. There were fallow fields on either side of the road (hence Fallowfield Road) and all the way along there were fireflies.... thousands, I would wager. Even from the speeding car, you could see them. Of course, rather than individual dots of light blinking away, they were streaks of light. I was amazed.

Is there an EG entry on fireflies? if not , why not?

I don't know. But I do know that I really need to get around to finishing that one I started a few years ago on the Texas Horned Toad Lizard.

That smiley is banned from these pages young man

Maybe it's time to change the wording of my AddForumIntro...

...

Which one? The erm or the biro?

Hopefully the biro because that's the first time I've used it and won't miss it. If it's the erm, well, there's no nor nor nor nor is there even an .

what's wrong with ?

It's not that one Actually, that kind of looks like a blue-tipped cigarette with blue smoke coming out of the wrong end, and I hate smoking so I might ban 'biro' too

Well, while you're at it ban and until they get antialiased. They just look pathetic next to the others.